I interviewed John about fighting one of man’s most dreaded and worst fears: Erectile Dysfunction. He sounded quite shy and embarrassed while talking about it, the tone of his voice said it all, but he still spoke alot about it to me. I recorded the phone conversation and typed it out and posted the transcript below:

(I will be referring to John as SA from now on)

ME: Hello John, would you mind telling me a bit about yourself before we start talking about your problem?

SE: Yes of course I’m John from Los Angeles and I am 34 years old now, going to be turning 35 in a month. My problem is that I have been impotent for the past six years.

ME (Interrupting him): 6 YEARS!!?? 29 seems a fairly young age to lose your sex life. Don’t you think so?

SE: Obviously, who would know the problems more than me, myself? I went through a lot of mental trauma and torture during the initial stages but I blame all of this on my job. I think it is my job that is responsible for my condition. I work in the US Navy, I have quite a high ranking position. Even though I love my job, it does really stress me out. It is very time consuming and I’m away from home for weeks. It does get too much to handle at a certain point of time but what can I do? It’s my bread and butter, can’t give it up! I was married to a wonderful lady in those good old days but things didn’t work out. Our marriage failed and we got divorced. Due to so much of work pressure that eventually led to Erectile Dysfunction, my marriage landed on the rocks and try as I may, I just couldn’t set things right. Turning back and thinking about those good old days now, I really miss her. Things were working out so great, but I guess god had something else plJohned for me.

ME: Oww, that is really very sad. How did your condition make you feel?

SE: Erectile Dysfunction was quite a major issue. It made me feel feeble and weak, I didn’t feel manly anymore. I thought I was less of a man and it made me lose my self confidence. This quickly started having its adverse effects on other areas of my life too. My marriage went through problems and I wasn’t performing as I used to at work either. Every single person saw the drastic change in me. People started asking questions offering to help, but I was just too embarrassed to ever discuss my problem with anyone.

ME: Didn’t all of this scare you?

SA: Scared? Scared would be an understatement. I felt terrified, I simply could not understand why this was happening to me. I mean, I hadn’t really done anything bad in my life, what was I being punished for? I was so messed up, I felt that a portion of my life had collapsed, a part of me had died within me.

ME: Did you feel worried about anything?

SE: Worried? Extremely! I was worried about Lilu. I didn’t know how she would react when she found out. I was wondering what she would say, or how she would react to the situation. Would she be with me or would she decide to go somewhere else? Oh, by the way, Lilu is..I mean WAS my wife.

ME: What would you say was the worst thing about the situation you were facing?

SE: As a person, I’m always loaded with energy. Yeah, I’m generally very energetic and active. I always used to love being involved in all sorts of things. Taking everything as a challenge, I would never give up. I’d try and try till I succeeded. Can you even imagine how I would have felt when I found out that I was impotent? Finding out that my penis wouldn’t function normally was so difficult for me, and to top it off, it happened at such a young age, that made the situation even worse and I just didn’t know what I could do about it.

This had an effect on my entire life, all the spheres of the life I was leading were affected- My Job, My Outlook, My personality, My Marriage, My confidence and comfort levels, EVERYTHING WAS AFFECTED! I went into depression for a while because I felt I had no one to talk to. I was getting totally frustrated: Sexually and mentally too. I did know that something had to be done about my condition, but I didn’t know what. It was so hard and embarrassing that I couldn’t even share my situation with friends. I knew that I had to take some action to solve my problem, but it was so difficult. It became much easier as time went by.

ME: What is the first step you took after you find out about your condition?

SE: Well, the first step, if I could think of any was admitting to myself that I was impotent. I just couldn’t believe I wasn’t a complete man anymore. It was probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to do, but I had to live with the truth. I was impotent and that was a fact. Finally, when I did accept the fact, I could move on with life in a much better mJohner.

ME: How did Lilu react? Correct me if I have her name wrong.

SE: Yes, Lilu, admitting to her wasn’t as hard as it initially seemed. After having convinced myself that I really was impotent, I went ahead to admitting the fact to Lilu. I knew it would be hard but I had to do it. However, it went pretty smoothly since she already had a clue. The situation had gotten so bad that she had already guessed something was wrong and it was pretty serious.

However, she was wonderful. She was very supportive and comforting. She was by my side all the time telling me that it didn’t matter if I was impotent. That’s exactly what I needed, after admitting to myself and her that I was impotent and I wouldn’t be able to lead a healthy sex life, a real friend was what I needed the most and Lilu was just that! We got divorced a year and a half back but we’re still great friends meeting up once in a while to see each other and know what’s going on in either’s life. I just left the rest to destiny, knowing and having faith that things would get fixed and fall into place by themselves.

ME: So what did you next?

SE: That point onwards, Lilu took charge of me. She started looking after ad taking care of me nursing me and sympathizing whenever required. She kept telling me that it really didn’t matter and she was happy with me the way I was. She consoled me saying that the two of us were a team and that we’d fight the problem together. Not only would we overcome the depression we were facing, but also find a solution to the problem to get things back to normal. Hence we started researching and looking for all the possible methods in which my problem could be solved. We started looking up newspapers, magazines and even surfing the internet to find a solution to Erectile Dysfunction. We visited a counsellor once or twice too.

ME: So did visiting the counsellor help you in any way?

SE: Well, I would say it did help me in some way. The counsellor helped me relax and think about the problem logically, reasoning everything out. She helped me bring the whole problem under control. She helped me realize that my problem wasn’t as tragic as I thought it was since there were many men around the world facing the same problem as I am. There are many more facing even worse problems than me in the world and I should feel good about what I have and appreciate it rather than feeling bad for what I don’t. The counsellor also helped me and Lilu enlist all the possible solutions to our problem which gave us a direction to start in.

ME: So what did you do next?

SE: After the visit to the counsellor, I and Lilu started surfing the internet to do field work on impotency. I was aware of Viagra on the market, but I hadn’t really ever wanted to know more about it so I didn’t. It just seemed to be a topic to joke about and I never was interested in it. Lilu and I decided to consult a couple of doctors for their opinions on whether Viagra would be a viable solution to my problem.

ME: Did this feel weird?

SE: Well, it didn’t really feel weird. I was not uncomfortable at all. This is because I’d been to the counsellor earlier and I had become comfortable talking about the topic to a third person. Additionally, I’ve been knowing my doctor for the past 16 years so it wasn’t a problem at all talking to him freely about my Erectile Dysfunction problem. He is like a friend to me and he helped me alot with my problem. He discussed with me everything I needed to know about Viagra like the benefits of it and the side effects it causes. He also made a few tests to make sure that I could use Viagra without any problems. After some further discussion, we finally came to the point that Viagra could be a short term solution to my problem and I decided to try it out.

I started taking Viagra and life was back to normal once again. It was a fantastic experience to have had sex after so long. It seemed like it was forever that I had had sex with my wife. It felt like I was on my honeymoon again. Things were falling back in place and I started gaining confidence. The first night was crazy! I was sweating like a turkey on thanksgiving. It felt supernatural. It was an out-of-the-world feeling that I experienced.

My doctor had warned me that Viagra isn’t 100% sure, there was quite a possibility that it might not work but I couldn’t just give up without trying. I had to give it atleast one shot to see whether it would work for me, and guess what? IT DID. It not only worked, but it worked GREAT! I began feeling so much more positive about life and the want to live started coming back to me. This sudden change in me that brought things in my life back to normal was definitely very comforting and amazing. My friends saw the change too and were glad that it happened.

ME: What changes are you talking about?

SE: Well, Lilu and I were doing great with each other but just like everything comes to an end, our marriage did. We grew out of each other and decided to mutually split up. We got divorced a year and a half ago and I have a girlfriend now. She’s a wonderful woman, and guess what? She’s three months pregnant with MY child!! It is impossible to believe that Viagra was actually able to give me my life back. My girlfriend and I are currently sharing an apartment and plJohning to get married in the near future, isn’t that absolutely great?

ME: Oh, that’s very nice John. Do you have some advice for our readers?
SE: My advice to all other men out there stuck in the same problem as I am is very simple, just gather the courage and tell someone about your problem. You never know how well they could help you out. If you feel too embarrassed to share your problem with anyone, you probably will never be able to get a solution to your problem.

So that was some advice from John of Los Angeles on dealing with Erectile Dysfunction. If you are impotent, don’t think the world has ended. You still have a life to lead and you CAN lead it normally just like you always did without changing anything in it!